


i can't seem to let you go

by itsactuallycorrine



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e06 A Fractured House, F/M, POV Female Character, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2587499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsactuallycorrine/pseuds/itsactuallycorrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma watches Ward every morning. But why? <strong>NOTE:</strong> even though I'm tagging this with the ship, it's not shippy, per se.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i can't seem to let you go

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first post-HYDRA-reveal AOS fic. I shipped Ward x Simmons in s1, but after Ward was revealed to be HYDRA and that (heartbreaking) finale, I kind of lost the will to ship them. 
> 
> Then "A Fractured House" aired and we got two things: Jemma admitting to watching Grant every morning and her threatening to kill him. (And of course, it's this that got me into this ship again...?! I don't understand it either.)
> 
> While both were interesting, it was really the former that got me thinking, "Okay, but why would she put herself through that?" And voila.
> 
> Also, I was planning on writing this story anyway, but while I was looking for some inspiration I came across [this video](http://youtu.be/qJ44M6NgPl8) and cried actual tears, which I don't think I have done over this ship before.
> 
> Title comes from the song "Gravity" by Sara Bareilles.

Jemma has always made it a habit to be an early riser. The things she's seen and done since joining Coulson's team have made that an infinitely easier task; on good nights, she counts herself lucky not to be woken by a nightmare about jumping from a plane or being shot at or whatever the freshest adventure may have been.

Since HYDRA's uprising, Jemma has not had any good nights. 

Nor days.

In fact, each sunrise seems to bring with it a new degree of disillusionment. 

Maybe, she thinks, it wouldn't be as bad if it weren't for the constant reminder of all their troubles residing in the basement. 

Maybe it wouldn't be as bad if she could maintain some level of control over her actions. 

And yet every morning, she finds herself rising at 5, dressing, making a cup of tea, and tuning in to watch Grant Ward wake at exactly 5:30 and begin his daily training.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When they first apprehend Ward, Jemma disagrees with Coulson's decision to lock the man inside the Playground with the rest of them, no matter how high-tech the security might be.

The first night he's held in Vault D, she tosses and turns all night in agitation, hardly daring to shut her eyes. 

Ward was an accomplished specialist with an impressive number of operations skills - what if he somehow managed to circumvent Koenig's security measures and killed them all in their sleep?

When she can't catch her breath, her heart begins pounding, and her chest tightens unbearably at the thought, there's only one thing she needs to calm down: proof that the cell is doing its job.

She creeps out in the early hours before dawn, turns on the feed, and watches Ward stare at his ceiling.

The cold fingers of fright start to recede, but she can't stop watching him, doesn't dare.

She tells herself it's to prevent another panic attack and for a few nights it may even be true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first weeks of Ward's containment are difficult. He seems hellbent on escaping his new lot in life, but not in any of the ways that keep Jemma up at night.

No, instead Grant Ward is doing everything in his power to try to end his own life.

Jemma works, with Trip's aid each time, to revive Ward and tries to maintain a clinical distance - this is not Grant, the man who saved her life on numerous occasions; this is the HYDRA sleeper agent who tried to kill her and Fitz.

It does no good. She still finds her stomach roiling with each attempt, holding her breath until she knows he's out of the woods. 

She comforts herself by noting that it's in her nature to save lives. It's the entire reason she joined SHIELD. It's not because of any latent friendship or goodwill or any of the other emotions that she may or may not have felt; it's strictly duty.

In the darkest moments, when his life is in her hands, her own internal monologue falls short. Maybe she'd be able to believe it if she could speak to Fitz or even Skye about what's going on, but Coulson has asked her and Trip to keep Ward's suicide attempts to themselves.

And although the weight of it may be crushing, she considers that this edict may be for the best. The last thing she'd want to do is add to Skye's already complicated feelings regarding Ward. As for talking to Fitz...

Well, it's just for the best that she can't speak of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Ward comes out of sedation following his final attempt, he seems to have made peace with his incarceration. 

Oddly enough, it's then that Jemma finds her own anger, betrayal, and hurt bubbling up. 

To see him so accepting of his fate makes her resent him even more for the rest of the team's. 

When he takes up a morning training routine, she worries; is this the first sign that he isn't as complacent as he seems? What is he preparing for?

She brings word of it to Coulson, who mercifully says nothing about the fact that she's just admitted to watching Ward and settles on simply thanking her for the intel. 

Jemma bites back the nervous litany of excuses that wants to come pouring out explaining her behavior. That she _can_ is a sure sign that being in the field is beginning to take its toll on her fundamentally.

She finds that it's not as alarming as it should be.

 

 

 

 

 

She tries to tell herself after a few more weeks that there's no reason for her continued observation of their prisoner. (It helps, she thinks, to call him "the prisoner"; maintains the distance.) He isn't a danger to himself anymore, hasn't made any attempts at escaping, and Director Coulson is aware that Ward is keeping himself in peak physical condition.

There's absolutely no reason to continue to put herself through this.

And yet she does, every morning, without fail.

And every morning, without fail, his eyes open at 5:30 and he begins his routine.

It gives Jemma more time than is probably strictly wise to think about, well, everything. 

She dissects every moment, every interaction, every observation she'd made of him before his reveal. 

She'd meant what she said to Fitz before - she truly believes that some people are just evil - but in the quiet moments before he awakens, she can admit she has trouble reconciling this man with the one who promised to catch her if she fell. 

Even worse, she can't quite bring herself to identify the reason for her almost morbid fascination with him. 

There are days when she's certain it's caused by her unresolved anger - she hasn't been allowed to speak to him. Only Coulson has gone down so far and Ward had made it clear he would only speak to Skye.

On those days, she fantasizes about the things she would say, carefully preparing every word, every phrase, to cut him as deeply as possibly, to hurt him as much as he's hurt the entire team. To see his face as she tells him about Fitz's current state after the oxygen deprivation, to force him to confront the brutal murders of numerous SHIELD agents, to yell at him with every foul word she can think of. Or alternately, to coolly lay his crimes at his feet. 

Other times, she feels that her surveillance may be out of a sense of schadenfreude, some small part of her finding comfort in the fact that he is suffering. (She's too honest, though, to believe this for long. Also, he doesn't appear to be suffering as much as one might in a small cell.)

Very rarely, she considers him with a horrified sort of awe. How had he done it, turned off such a basic part of himself and become someone else? How could he live this entire other life, form relationships, all with this one single goal in mind? How had he not compromised his mission? 

In her most brutally self-aware moments, she's knows that she's avoiding one possible cause for her morning habit, although she's done well (even before he'd revealed himself as a traitor) to mitigate any silly flutterings of her heart.

After all, when a handsome man risks his life by jumping out of an airplane for you, it's only natural for a young, attractive biochemist to feel some softening of the heart and a quickness to her pulse, isn't it?

Oh, she'd picked up on whatever was between Ward and Skye soon enough - to say nothing of what went on between him and May - and tucked her disappointed dreams into a tidy bundle to hide them away. But well, she can't deny that she'd had times where she'd wondered, _what if_?

 

 

 

 

 

Some mornings, she forgets - forgets that Fitz will never be the same, forgets that Skye has had her heart broken, forgets that Coulson is director, forgets her own harrowing experience at the bottom of the ocean.

Some mornings, she wakes up with a smile and wonders what science will fall into her lap today, what exciting field mission they'll be sent on, if Fitz will invent some new toy just at the last second or May will take out an entire enemy base single-handedly or if Ward will need medical treatment that will lead him to take off his shirt in the lab again. 

When it all comes crashing down on her at once, those are the days that she truly learns what it is to hate someone.

Those are the days where she curses her inability to resist the urge to turn on the feed.

Those are the days where Jemma Simmons, who has dedicated her entire career to saving lives, watches their prisoner and imagines what it would be like to kill someone.

 

 

 

 

 

The mission to infiltrate HYDRA, as nerve-wracking as it seems, is an unlikely relief, not only from her heartbreak over Fitz, but for one other very simple reason: there is absolutely no way she'll be able to tap into the secure feed and watch Ward.

In a way, it will be saving her from herself. 

From a purely detached point of view, she thinks it may even be interesting to experience first-hand what it was he was doing, how he did it.

Maybe it will give her a new perspective.

 

 

 

 

It does give her a new perspective, but not in the way that she'd assumed. Instead, when she returns, it seems as though all the other emotions - fear, schadenfreude, her silly stupid crush - have been wiped away.

All that remains is anger.

It's cleaner, embracing the fury at Ward, letting it fill her mind as she watches him. And she still does, every morning, but now it fills her with purpose.

She knows that Skye has finally spoken to him, knows that he hasn't apologized, has only made excuses.

She adds that fuel to the fire.

She knows about Fitz visiting him, although not the details of what they discussed.

She stokes the flames.

She knows now what it's like, being in a position where you're infiltrating an organization under orders, pretending to be friendly, to be loyal, while you're planning their downfall. 

She knows what a toll that takes on someone now.

But Grant - other than his captivity, he seems to show no remorse for his actions.

So Jemma lets the anger take over and hardens her heart against the look in his eyes as he's being led out to face his rightful trial, as he calls out to Skye.

Stepping forward, she lets her emotions take over and all of the carefully worded accusations she's planned boil down to one very firm promise:

"If I ever see you again, I'll kill you."

She'd swear he looks shaken in that moment, but she turns away instead.

Jemma Simmons is finally done watching him.


End file.
